Parks, esplanades and other publicly-accessible spaces on the waterfront provide opportunities for recreation, sight-seeing, events and other activities that allow visitors and residents alike to experience New York City as a waterfront city. New public and private investments, as well as effective waterfront zoning regulations, have succeeded in making a significant amount of the waterfront available for public use.

As part of the work of Vision 2020: New York City’s Comprehensive Waterfront Plan, the Department of City Planning has created this interactive map to identify and provide information about the city’s inventory of publicly-accessible waterfront spaces. Select a borough from the citywide map, and then choose a waterfront site for a description of that space. Photos are provided for privately owned sites along with a list of features and amenities such as walkways, seating, trees, and lighting. There is a link to the NYCityMap to see the general location and adjacent streets. For publicly accessible waterfront sites on public property, there is a link to the agency’s website under whose jurisdiction that property falls, providing additional information.

The interactive map includes 217 publicly accessible waterfront spaces that are constructed, including 188 on public property and 29 on private property. The GIS shapefiles used to create this interactive map also include another 11 spaces that are in progress, and 27 spaces that are planned. Private spaces that are planned but have not started are not included on the map, but contained in the Publicly Accessible Waterfront Spaces (PAWS) Database.